Crazy shot by Glenwood's Helm goes viral

Thursday

Jan 26, 2012 at 12:01 AMJan 26, 2012 at 9:07 PM

CS8 Boys Hoops Notes: Chatham Glenwood High School’s Daniel Helm had the shot of a lifetime Friday in the Meijer Classic against Lincoln. Unfortunately, it went in Lincoln’s basket and counted as two points for the Railers. Video of the shot has gone viral, appearing all over the Internet and on TV.

Ryan Mahan

Chatham Glenwood High School’s Daniel Helm had the shot of a lifetime Friday in the Meijer Classic against Lincoln. Unfortunately, it went in Lincoln’s basket and counted as two points for the Railers. It had originally been ruled a 3-pointer (a shot has to be an attempt at the basket to count as a 3).

Helm tried to save the ball out of bounds near the sideline at Lincoln’s end of the court. As his momentum carried him away from the basket, he threw the ball behind him. It hit the glass and went in.

The next day, before the Titans wrapped up their title against Jacksonville, a few Glenwood teammates could be seen in the east gym trying to recreate his shot.

Video of Helm’s shot has gone viral, first on the local sports website channel1450.com before appearing nationally on yahoo.com, sportsbybrooks.com and larrybrownsports.com. It also aired Wednesday on ESPN’s SportsNation.

Davis’ return sparks Lions

Lanphier guard T.J. Davis. Davis dropped in 12 of his 14 points in the second half of Saturday’s 62-54 win over Southeast on the final night of the City Tournament.

He scored seven of his points in the third period. In the fourth quarter, with Lanphier leading 51-50, Davis went in for a layup and was fouled hard by Southeast’s Chris Davis. He hit the side of his face on the floor and was down for a few minutes as Jaylen Briggity replaced him to shoot the free throws.

T.J. Davis came back into the game, and along with Briggity, they secured the Lions’ championship after the Spartans got within 55-54. T.J. Davis scored three points and Briggity and A.J. Powers each had buckets as Lanphier scored the final seven points of the game.

“I was thinking it was my last city tournament, my senior year,” T.J. Davis said, when asked what motivated him to return to the game. “I had to go out with a bang. I stepped out and had to get my focus back and came back determined and ready to win.”

Southeast’s Davis has monster game

Chris Davis kept Southeast within striking distance of Lanphier in the final game of the City Tournament.

He scored 13 of his team-high 17 points in the second half, including nine in the third quarter. Davis’ tomahawk dunk in the third quarter brought the capacity crowd of 6,404 people to its feet. His 14 rebounds and three blocks were also game highs.

Davis scored the Spartans’ final four points with two free throws and a tip-in basket.

Railers’ milestone

On Saturday, Lincoln played the 2,500th and 2,501st games in school history.

In the first game, the Railers beat Rochester 39-26. Lincoln knocked off Highland 36-30 in the second game of the day at the Meijer Winter Classic in Chatham.
Lincoln is 1,639-872 all time.

Meijer leaders

Rochester’s Zach Grant scored 63 points as the Rockets went 1-4 at the Meijer Classic last week to lead all scorers in the six-team tournament. Highland’s Quincy University-bound Geoff Hartlieb was second with 60 points.

Points were hard to come by in the tournament. Three teams averaged fewer than 40 points per game.

Tournament champion Chatham Glenwood led all teams with 53.4 points per game and the Titans got two overtimes to help add to that total.

Jacksonville’s Dalton Keene finished with 8.8 rebounds per game. Hartlieb was second at 6.6 and Helm had 6.5. The only other player with six rebounds or more per game was Taylorville’s Tanner Jackson with 6.0.

The Tornadoes’ Jeff McChristy had 25 assists to beat out Glenwood’s Tyler Thurston, who handed out 23.

Right track

Lincoln has won five of its last six games, going 4-1 at Meijer. It is the best stretch of the season for the Railers, but with games Saturday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday — the final four days at the Meijer Classic — it didn’t leave a whole lot of space for Lincoln to get much practice time.

And Lincoln coach Neil Alexander said he is happy to get back to a more routine schedule.

“We’ve just got to work on consistency and keep working on our defense,” he said. “We’ve got some bugs to iron out in both our offense and defense. We’ve still got a lot of work to do.”

Cyclones healthy but sore

After three physical games at the City Tournament last week, Sacred Heart-Griffin coach Blake Lucas said his team has a few players banged up in practice this week.

But in practice, he said, “We are really emphasizing that we must stay focused and continue to get better everyday and grow together.

“We continue to stress defense and rebounding and doing the little things so that we are playing our best basketball as we move to February and into regionals.”

Lucas added his team took part in hauling the food after the food drive Sunday at Saint Martin de Porres, banged up and all.

Growing pains

Taylorville has had its share of close losses, and with a roster dominated by underclassmen, coach Jim Novar knows that is part of the growing process. However, he said there are things that his youthful roster can key on to make big improvements.

“What I take from it is that we’re not mentally focused to play four quarters of basketball,” Novar said. “We’re not mentally ready to play. What’s a shame is that we’ve had some opportunities and we’ve given opportunities away.”

Ryan Mahan can be reached at 788-1546. Staff writer Trevor Lawrence contributed to this notebook.

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